Then men still signed articles, voyage after voyage, for the long drill around the Horn, or, to vary the monotony, if such it could be called, made the voyage to Australia, or to China or Japan. In the main, however, American ships clearing from New York carried cargoes to the West Coast of the United States, or to the Hawaiian Islands, where they came under the protective ruling of the coastwise shipping laws, and were not compelled to meet the stringent insurance rates of Lloyd's that barred American sailing bottoms from fair competition with the British. The sailor men of that day were still real seamen, at least a large number of real seamen still clung to the remaining ships. They were experts, able to turn in a dead eye in wire or hemp, and could cast a lanyard knot in the stiff four-stranded stuff that was later on replaced by screws and turn buckles when metal hulls succeeded those of wood. With the passing of the wooden ship--the wooden square rigged sailer--went the American sailor, for comparatively few steel sailing ships were built in the United States. With the sailor went the romance of bulging canvas and of storm stripped humming bolt ropes. The tragedy, and the hardships of the long voyages passed away, and with that passing is gone much of the actual physical struggle with the wind and sea that made the sailor what he was. The square rigged breed of sailors, while not dead yet, for the old salts die hard, has, by force of circumstances, failed to rear a younger generation to take its place. But the old spirit of sea adventure is as strong as ever; the ocean rages as loud, and lies as calm, as in the days of departed glory. It is still the world route to foreign trade, and a more ample domestic prosperity. Americans are again turning toward the sea, are heeding its age old wisdom, and are building and handling the newer craft of steam, and coal, and oil, with as much skill and success as they did the sailing craft of old. On the following pages is recorded for the seamen and landsmen of today, a personal story of one of the last voyages around Cape Horn in a wooden ship propelled by sail alone--a ship without a donkey engine, a wooden Bath-built packet at her prime in point of age and upkeep. The advance notes have been cashed by the boarding masters, who have left the crew in tow of their crimps, and, after deducting for board and slops, the last remaining dollars have been blown in on the Bowery under the watchful eyes of the runners, who see to it that the men are delivered on board. Our ship is the _A. J. Fuller_ of New York, Captain Charles M. Nichols, and she waits her crew, ready to cast off from her berth in the East River at the turn of the tide, at daybreak on December 5, 1897, having cleared for the port of Honolulu, capital of the Republic of Hawaii, with a general cargo consigned to the old island house of Brewer and Company. CHAPTER I OUTWARD BOUND